God's Mistake
by Akanesi
Summary: Jack, if he had never joined Torchwood. Wouldn't waiting for a hundred years drive you mad? "He was just a shape, an empty vessel of crying skin." Reviews returned.


He walked through this life slowly. He never touched the sides, never stopped to think about what he could accomplish. Because he always knew he would fail, he always failed. Whether it was at a day to day task or a relationship, it all want wrong, everyone left him. No one could be bothered to stick around long enough to see how useless he was; they just used him and left. And he let them. Because he believed that was all he deserved.

He spent his days home alone, reading or sleeping. He was worthy of nothing else. He was a shadow that passed through life without a backward glance. His evenings and nights were filled with walking, trying to run away from the hell that was him. The park and the streets. Nothing new, nothing different. The same park with the same pond and the same streets with the same lamps. The one unsimilar thing was the number of street lamps that remained bright. It seemed that with every day he walked, every day he let slip by, every day that would never revisit, a lamp would blink out of existence, proving to his subconscious that his life was indeed a failure.

He would stand for hours by the pond's side, staring into the murky depths and wishing he could find the strength to take the definitive step. The water would swirl, taunting him with promises of what was to come. Nothing, nothing but the black.

* * *

He had tried at one time, yes he had. He had left the house. He had spoken to people. He had had friends. People he thought he could turn to and rely on. He was always there for them when it mattered but when he had needed help they had suddenly vanished into the fog, taking with them dreams of the better life, the safe life. The life away from the dark and the cold and the feeling of death that spread over his skin when he was alone. His skin had crawled so much it was dried and wrinkled to his eyes, showing the soul within, which was withering.

The constant reminder that he was no good, that he shunned himself into an abyss, until even the swirling shapes around him shrank back, afraid of the monster he had become. Because he had depersonalised himself so much from people that he doubted he was one any more. He was just a shape, an empty vessel of crying skin, with a swollen face in his own imagination's curse, liquefied into a tragic twist of fate.

* * *

He wants to leave it all behind, to be free. He wants not to fear the shadows in the back streets and alleys. He wants the peace of a never ending embrace, a joy in itself, turned inwards. He wants to smile and laugh and be joyful. He wants to look upon the world and see the wonder of six billion lives working as one, in harmony. He wants to see himself as a person, not an object. He wants others to see him as a person that is right, that will be the hero of the hour and save them. What he really wants? He wants to save himself.

He walks slowly through the park, to his favourite spot at the pond. Can a creature have a favourite anything? Is a creature able to feel? He doesn't know, although he feels nothing. The wind is a distant memory of a lullaby. The leaves the sound of screams. The bark of a dog a mad man's call. The trickle of rain an invasion. The babies' cries a thunder clap and the creak of the new life's door opening, not a welcoming gesture or the start of a new adventure, but the fear of what lies beyond. What if all that lies beyond the gate way is black? No movement, no speech, no thought, just drifting through time, alone, forever.

* * *

The frequency was wrong, the family tree mixed and sprung off the ceiling. The water was wrong, biting the palms of outstretched hands and breaking the backs of trees foreboding.

He was not even a he now, he was an it, descending silently. It freezes in time, knowing the end has caught up. It lives on borrowed time day by day. It knows it's broken; the limbs of a thousand men will not replace the shattered bones on broken wrongs, a reminder of what's to come in its worst nightmares. But then comes the sinking, the gift of dreams.

It sank to the bottom. The dark stench of water engulfing the eyes of blue, the hands clasping at shoulders, drawing it in, holding it tight under the surface. Thrashing arms and burning legs, nothing will now come of the dream. The nightmare raises all and receives the worship of a million tortured souls.

It was the wrong doer. A dead creature in a world of dying people. The odd one out in a world where everyone is different. A curse, passing the lips of the devil, scared of the creation.

It even feared itself. For its whole life not one spark of humanity had existed within it. No soul had rotted its gut and no heartfelt purpose had smeared its eyes. It was what some people would call truly free. But itself, it called monster.

And that was what it wanted. For if something has any feeling within its body, it therefore must be alive. It must have been born and raised. It must have called and received its calling. It must see the world and the world must see it. So that is what it told itself as it sank. It still thought ill of itself but it was human.

He was god's mistake.


End file.
